


Kindergarten stories

by twin_fics



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twin_fics/pseuds/twin_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s nap time, but sleeping is the last thing these little boys had in their minds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindergarten stories

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. Non-english speaker.

“Come on boys! It is nap time.” Clapping her hands loudly, the young teacher tried to catch the attention of the five children that were happily playing inside the room. “Nino-chan, Jun-chan, stop fighting. Oh-chan, come here, you’ll finish your drawing later.”

“But Sho-chan and I are flying!” a brown haired child protested, his thin arms stretched out to the sides imitating a plane. His friend Sho, a boy with big, round eyes and an intelligent expression, had his hands on his shoulders. He was wearing a blue cap too big for his small head that kept falling over his eyes again and again. The dark haired child seemed to be enjoying his time as a “plane pilot” a lot but unlike his taller friend he stopped without a protest.

“Aiba-chan, if you don’t sleep now you’ll be too tired to play later,” the teacher tried to reason with the reluctant boy.

“But, what happens if I don’t want to play later? What will I do with all that rest?” Aiba asked, intrigued by the whole idea of saving time for an unknown future.

The teacher sighed, wondering not for the first time if those little devils weren’t too intelligent for their own age. She had started working as a summer kindergarten teacher only a few weeks ago, but she had been confident in her ability to manage the children. After all, she had reasoned at that time, five little boys less than six years old couldn’t be so difficult to manage, could they? Now she didn’t feel so confident.

Aiba had too much energy for his own good and was always running around and trying strange experiments which, if the teachers were lucky, were found soon enough to be stopped before they had catastrophic consequences – most of the times at least. On the other hand Ohno, the eldest of the boys, was the quietest child she had ever seen. She had been on the verge of forgetting him once or twice at lunch’s time. It was unnerving the way that kid got sometimes so absorbed in his own little world, quiet and silent in some corner out of everybody view. Luckily for her, Nino and Jun were never too far away. Speaking of Jun, that child was pretty easy to manage… when he wasn’t fighting with Nino, his sworn enemy, or occupied with his clothes or his hair – he had an incredible sense of fashion for a five years old. And Nino... well, Nino was a brilliant boy, almost a genius... if only he didn’t use the majority of his intelligence to play pranks on his friends or to make his teachers nuts, her life would be much easier. At least Sho – her favorite, - was an obedient boy, even though he sometimes worried about the most strange things.

The young woman diverted the child’s attention offering him his stuffed dog – a trick that always worked with Aiba-chan; the boy really loved that cuddly toy, - and with the other teacher in charge’s help she helped the children to get into their small futons, wrapping them carefully with the covers.

“Are all of you comfortable?” She asked from her position, kneeled near Sho and Aiba’s futons.

“Yes!” the children answered in unison. The teacher, satisfied with their quick response, ruffled Sho’s hair and got up. “Well, we’ll be back in an hour, be good boys and sleep, o.k.?”

“O.k.!”

“Yosh! I’ll leave you in charge, Sho-chan,” she added with a smile. He had tried to leave Ohno in charge before. It hadn’t worked that well. It was true that Ohno had a curious soothing effect over the other boys, but he seemed to be out of it most of the times and he always allowed the other children to do as they pleased. Sho was a safer choice.

“Well, have sweet dreams!” she sing-sang with a big, bright smile. “ _Mission accomplished! It seems today is going to be a good day, after all,_ ” she thought. With that, the young woman left the room, chatting animatedly with the other teacher.

~~

Less than five minutes later Nino got out from his futon and launched himself over Aiba, who squeaked surprised.

“Nino!” protested Sho, hearing the ruckus they were doing, “They told us to take a nap!”

Nino ignored his complaints and smiled mischievously at Aiba, tilting his head towards Jun’s sleeping form. Aiba widened his eyes, surprised, but soon he began to smile almost as mischievously as Nino.

Meanwhile, Ohno slowly crawled out of his futon and approached the corner where he had left his paintings tools. He happily resumed his drawing and just in a few seconds he was lost in his own little world again.

Aiba and Nino approached Jun between evil giggles. The taller boy stole the fluffy blanket that was covering Jun while Nino caught the unsuspecting child’s foot to tickle it. Jun, who had been on the verge of falling asleep just a moment ago, yelled outraged and began to kick whoever was near him, namely Nino.

“Nino! Stop now! You’re supposed to be sleeping!” Sho scolded Nino from his futon but the little brat paid no attention to him and kept trying to tickle Jun’s foot. Sho pouted unhappily and approached them with the intention of helping Jun.

The other child didn’t need his help, though. A furious kick that almost connected with Nino’s face, made the latest consider his options. The short, impish brat decided that it would be safer to play with Aiba after all. With a cry of challenge, he took the other side of the blanket the bubbly kid was still holding and started a tug of war with his friend.

Jun, enraged for having being so rudely awoken, started one of his infamous tantrums. He began to cry loudly, getting redder and redder with each passing second, and ignored Sho’s desperate attempts to try to shoot him.

Suddenly, Ohno appeared beside the weeping boy holding a drawing and smiling as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Do you like it?” he asked, showing him his drawing, “It’s you!” he announced proudly.

Surprised by the quiet boy’s appearance, Jun stopped crying and looked with watery eyes at the drawing. “Me?” he questioned, calming a bit.

“Yup!” Ohno smiled brilliantly at him.

Jun smiled back and hugged his friend. “Play costumes with me, yes?”

“Un!” Ohno pleasantly nodded his acceptance.

Jun smiled with pleasure, his previous bad mood quickly forgotten faced with the scintillating prospect of playing one of his favourite games with Ohno, one of his favourite friends. Although the quiet boy was almost one year older than Jun, he never treated Jun as if he was a nuisance. When the chubby faced boy wasn’t sleeping or drawing, lost on his own world, he usually had no inconvenience in playing to whatever game Jun was interested in. Furthermore, the short boy was cuter and funnier than any of the girls in the kindergarten, and much more interesting too. Definitely one of Jun’s favourite friends.

Jun dragged the older boy to the costume chest – a brightly coloured box full of various types of costumes that the children could use freely in their games, - and started rummaging about in the chest. Ohno just sat beside the chest, waiting with a beatifically smile for his friend to find something of his taste.

Sho left out a sigh of relief. They weren’t sleeping, but at least they were quiet. As one of his problems seemed to have been solved, - at least for the moment, - he decided to focus his attention on the rambunctious pair of boys that had started the whole conflict.

The place they had previously occupied was now empty except for Jun’s forgotten blanket.  
“Where did they go?” Sho pondered, scratching his nape pensively. He didn’t have to go too far to found them, though. The two culprits, growing bored of the blanket, had started a tag game. And it was obvious they didn’t regret the pandemonium they had created before because they were being even noisier this time.

“You two, stop right now!” Sho ordered with his best serious voice.

It worked like a charm on Aiba. The cheerful child stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Sho with big, wide eyes; a bit of remorse showing in his face, - because Aiba could be a lively, reckless child that loved to play, but he knew when he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Nino didn’t have that problem, though, - the part about feeling remorse, that is. The black haired devil knew very well when he was doing something that he shouldn’t be doing, of course, but as far as he was concerned if the reason behind the prohibition seemed stupid for him, there was no real need to follow the orders. One only need to be careful not to be caught red handed – insert Nino’s devious trademark smile here, peace sign included.

But surprisingly enough, Sho’s order had the desired effect on Nino too because as he turned in Sho’s direction to protest, he got a glimpse of something he didn’t like a bit.

Hadn’t been Oh-chan happily drawing alone just a moment ago? How had his chubby cheeked friend ended up playing with Jun-pon, his archenemy, and wearing a strange pink princess-ish costume? And why was Jun-pon wearing a prince costume? Something was very wrong in that image, a small, jealous inner voice whispered to him. Oh-chan was his best, favourite friend, - well, he was Jun, Sho and Aiba‘s good friend too, but Nino was sure he was the one who liked the sleepy boy the most, so he obviously should have some rights over the others, right? Shouldn’t be he the one wearing the prince costume and playing with Oh-chan, then? “ _Absolutely_ ”, the same inner voice answered immediately. So why wasn’t he?

Sho and Aiba were asking him something, but he ignored them. He had a mission, now. Something must be done to rectify the actual situation. Jun-pon would pay for snatching his friend away when he was occupied playing with Aiba.

He conveniently ignored that it had been him who started the whole thing, startling the younger boy out of his peaceful dream. But that had been an innocent prank, - he reasoned, - a way to get even with Jun for their latest fight. But this… This was robbery!

“This means war!” Nino cried, raising his small, chubby fist towards the sky in a fighting pose. And with that he left to plan his next move, ignoring Aiba and Sho‘s puzzled stares.

“What is Nino-chan talking about?” Sho turned to Aiba with a quizzical look in his face.

“No idea.” The lanky child shrugged, looking at the retreating back of his short friend as he left, muttering darkly to himself.

In that moment his eyes noticed a bottle of natto, resting inconspicuously among other bottles in the selves of the small kitchenette the teachers sometimes used to prepare their meals, and a bright idea occurred to him.

“Do you want to try something, Sho-chan?”

“Something? What?” Sho couldn’t help asking, greatly interested, forgetting momentarily that they should be sleeping. He loved Aiba’s experiments. Although they seemed a bit stupid sometimes, they were always funny and interesting. And Sho loved to learn new things so he was always eager to help the other boy.

“Natto is sticky, right?” Aiba asked, already approaching his target – the bottle of natto. “Do you think we can use it to glue the building blocks together?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” Sho replied, scratching his nape pensively.

“Let’s try it then!” the lanky boy proposed with a bright smile, taking the bottle in his little hands.

Meanwhile Nino, having already dismissed the most evident approach to his “catching Oh-chan’s attention” problem, - after awakening Jun so rudely just a few minutes ago, he couldn’t possibly ask the black haired boy if he could join their game as if nothing had happened, could he? - was still searching for the best solution.

The mischievous boy tried passing once or twice near the place where his chubby checked friend and Jun-pon were playing, whistling as loud as he could, – something he was exceptionally proud of because he was the only boy in the kindergarten who knew how to do it, - but Ohno was too absorbed in their game to notice it.

Nino frowned, disappointed. What else could he do to catch his oblivious friend’s attention? Suddenly he remembered something that had occurred just a few weeks ago. Aiba had brought a small, brightly coloured ball that made jingle bell sounds when bounced or rolled on the floor. Attracted by its novelty, the other four boys had checked Aiba’s new toy, playing with it for a bit until they had gradually gotten bored of the small ball and changed to another toy. But not Ohno. The older boy had been fascinated by it. He had spent almost all the morning bouncing the ball and running after it, giggling madly. Nino knew it because he had spent almost half of his morning observing his friend – he had been the first one to grow tired of the ball, but looking at his usually quiet friend giggling cutely and running after the ball had proved to be surprisingly fascinating. Maybe he could use that ball again to grab Oh-chan‘s attention!

The impish boy decided to ask his friend Aiba if he remembered where the ball was but he found that the cheerful boy had started one of his infamous experiments with Sho as his helper, as usual - Nino still couldn‘t understand how such a serious boy as Sho gladly allowed Aiba to drag him into those crazy experiments of his. And this one involved natto, of all the things! Ugh!

Nino scrunched his button noise in displeasure. If there was something in the world he hated with passion, it was natto. Its slippery texture, its distinctive smell, its nutty taste. A shiver ran down his spine. Ugh and double ugh! He would find the coloured ball by himself, if nothing else to avoid getting involved with that disgusting thing.

Putting as much distance as he could between himself and Aiba’s new spawn of doom - also known as an experiment for the ones who didn‘t know better, - he started rummaging about in the drawers where they usually kept their toys when they weren‘t playing with them. It his memory didn’t fail him… Aha! There it was!

With a cry of triumph, the mischievous boy grabbed the small ball and ran back to his friend side, stopping a few meters away from the place where Jun and Ohno were still playing costumes. Nino spied them from behind a huge teddy bear, scheming what his next move should be. He could just walk near them, innocently bouncing the ball, hoping to catch Ohno’s attention that way. But the sleepy boy seemed to be annoyingly concentrated in his game with Jun, so that idea probably wouldn’t work as well as Nino would like. The little boy frowned, scratching his nose in concentration. Ah! He could throw the ball in Ohno and Jun’s direction and then approach them to retrieve the ball. Then he would ask what were they playing, showing the appropriate amount of interest, and surely Oh-chan will invite him to join their game. Yeah, that sounded like a foolproof plan!

Impatient to put his plan in action, the short boy took a few steps away from the big bear and aimed toward his target. He was so completely focused on the pair of boys playing costumes that he didn’t see Aiba until it was too late. The bubbly boy was running toward Ohno and Jun, closely followed by Sho, with a tray full of building bocks and natto in his hands, presumably with the intention of showing the result of his experiment to the other two boys.

As in slow motion, the ball flew toward his lanky friend and hit him in the head, throwing him off balance. The tray flied from his hands and crashed onto Jun’s lap, dirty building blocks and chunks of natto flying in all directions.

For a moment there was silence, and then pandemonium.

Yelling with rage at the sight of his beloved prince costume now unusable, Jun started throwing dirty blocks in Nino’s direction. The younger boy was able to dodge most of them, but finally one hit him right in the face. He felt the sticky gossamer-like strings sliding down his face, the smell of natto overwhelming his nostrils… he hated it! He had only wanted to play with Oh-chan, why did all end up this way? Nino started weeping too, throwing blocks in Jun’s direction. One of his blocks hit Aiba’s stuffed dog by accident. The lanky boy, who had been gaping at the mayhem he had started with wide eyes, immediately ran to his adored toy’s side but it was too late. The doll’s fluffy snout was covered in natto now, giving the impression that the poor stuffed animal had caught a cold. Aiba’s eyes filled up with tears and he started bawling, disconsolate. Sho looked at his friends, greatly distressed. The teacher had left him in charge and they should be sleeping but everybody was crying, nobody was sleeping, the floor was dirty with natto, Aiba’s doll too, the prince costume too… Sho’s chin started trembling, he sat in the floor and started crying too, his small hands rubbing his wet eyes.

In that moment, Ohno seemed to snap out of his reverie - he had been entirely focused on following the bouncing coloured ball to notice anything. He looked at his crying friends, surprised. The child tilted his head pensively as if analyzing what had happened. He finally shrugged his shoulders and went to Jun’s side. He took the enraged boy by the hand and kissed him on the cheek. The black haired boy stopped crying, perplex. Still holding Jun’s hand, Ohno went to Nino’s side and kissed the other boy on the cheek too. Nino looked at Ohno with watery eyes, bewildered for a moment, but soon he rubbed his eyes and smiled at his chubby-cheeked friend. Ohno took Nino’s had with his free hand and led his two friends to where Sho was still crying. He made his two friends sit beside Sho, who sniffed a few times before stopping crying altogether, smiling weakly. Ohno sat in the floor with the rest of the boys and beckoned Aiba over, smiling sleepily. Aiba looked at his friends with an inquiring expression, seemed to consider what to do for a few seconds, and ended up launching himself over them, crying with joy. They all started giggling, tickling each other, becoming a tiny mountain of tangled limbs and laughs.

 **EPILOGUE**  
The young teacher returned to the class, wondering if the children would be still asleep. She opened the door a bit and carefully popped her head inside. The boys weren’t inside their futons but peacefully sleeping all piled up, cuddling together like puppies.

They were so cute, those little angels.

But wait a moment. Why was all the floor full of dirty building blocks and… natto? Why was Aiba’s stuffed dog wet, dripping over a chair near a prince costume equally drenched? Why was Nino’s hair wet too?

What those devils had done in her absence?!


End file.
